Enflame’s IPO Completes China’s GPU Big Four as Valuation Test Begins
China's domestic AI chip race enters a new capital chapter as Enflame Technology, the last of the country's four leading homegrown GPU developers to reach public markets, opens its Shanghai STAR Market subscription on September 2, making it the first IPO accepted on China's A-share market in 2026.
The Shenzhen-based chipmaker is offering 43.035 million shares — representing 10% of post-issuance equity — at a target raise of RMB 6 billion (US$833 million), with CITIC Securities serving as lead sponsor and Guotai Haitong Securities and GF Securities as joint underwriters. The subscription code is 787801. The company's IPO timeline — from acceptance on January 22 to registration approval on July 9 — clocked in at under six months, an unusually swift passage through STAR Market review.
The listing closes a symbolic loop. With Enflame's arrival, Moore Threads, Muxi Integrated Circuit, Biren Technology, and Enflame Technology — collectively branded China's "GPU Big Four" — are now all publicly traded, spanning both A-shares and Hong Kong.
Predecessors' Debuts Reveal a Familiar Boom-and-Correction Pattern
The IPO roadshow benefits from a powerful, if cautionary, precedent. Moore Threads listed on December 5, 2025, at an issue price of RMB 114.28. On its first trading day, shares opened up 468.78%, closing at a 425.46% gain with a market capitalization of RMB 282.25 billion (US$39.2 billion). The stock peaked at RMB 941.08 on its sixth trading session, pushing market cap above RMB 440 billion (US$61.1 billion) — the most profitable new issue for retail subscribers under China's full registration-based IPO system, with a single winning lot generating nearly RMB 270,000 (US$37,500) in paper gains.
By August 25, 2026, Moore Threads had retraced to RMB 532.88, a decline of more than RMB 190 billion (US$26.4 billion) from its peak, though still trading at a 366% premium to its issue price. First-half 2026 revenue exceeded RMB 1.7 billion (US$236 million), the highest among the four peers.
Twelve trading days after Moore Threads' debut, Muxi Integrated Circuit opened at RMB 700 against an issue price of RMB 104.66 — a 568.83% first-day open — eventually touching RMB 895 intraday before settling at RMB 829.9, a 692.95% gain. Turnover on day one hit RMB 11.26 billion (US$1.56 billion) with an 84.72% turnover rate, suggesting near-complete retail churn. Its peak market cap reached RMB 413.2 billion (US$57.4 billion); as of August 25, it traded at RMB 655.25, with a market cap of RMB 262.2 billion (US$36.4 billion).
Biren Technology, which chose Hong Kong over A-shares, listed on January 2, 2026, rising 80% on debut to a market cap of HK$84.6 billion (approximately RMB 76 billion). The more measured reception reflected Hong Kong's distinct valuation framework: Biren posted 2025 revenue of RMB 1.035 billion (US$143.8 million) against an adjusted operating net loss of RMB 874 million (US$121.4 million). As of August 25, Biren traded at HK$35.68, up 2.71%, with a market cap of approximately HK$92.5 billion.
The trajectory across all three predecessors traces an identical arc: scarcity premium and domestic substitution narrative drive explosive debut gains; performance delivery pressure forces a sustained correction. The key question for Enflame investors is which segment of that curve they are entering.
Enflame's Financials Show Accelerating Revenue but a Persistent Loss Hole
Founded in March 2018 by Zhao Lidong — a Tsinghua University EE Class of 1985 alumnus and former president of RDA Microelectronics — and co-founder Zhang Yalin, his former colleague at AMD, Enflame has developed four proprietary chip architectures and five cloud-side AI chips over eight years. Its current flagship product is the S60 inference accelerator card.
Shipment data provides a concrete operational baseline: cumulative shipments of three product generations exceeded 160,000 units through June 2026. Full-year 2025 shipments reached 66,000 units; Q1 2026 alone surpassed 20,000 units. The company has begun generating revenue from thousand-card and ten-thousand-card intelligent computing center deployments.
Revenue grew from RMB 301 million (US$41.8 million) in 2023 to RMB 722 million (US$100.3 million) in 2024 and RMB 990 million (US$137.5 million) in 2025 — a three-year compound annual growth rate of 81.32%. Net losses attributable to parent shareholders narrowed from RMB 1.665 billion (US$231.3 million) in 2023 to RMB 1.510 billion (US$209.7 million) in 2024 and RMB 1.164 billion (US$161.7 million) in 2025. Accumulated uncompensated losses stood at RMB 4.44 billion (US$616.7 million) at end-2025.
Q1 2026 revenue reached RMB 287 million (US$39.9 million), up 1,474.85% year-on-year, while net loss narrowed 38% year-on-year to RMB 444 million (US$61.7 million). Management has guided for consolidated profitability in 2026 or 2027.
Tencent's Six-Round Commitment Provides Stability — and Concentration Risk
Enflame carries one defining structural characteristic that simultaneously underwrites its near-term revenue visibility and introduces a material risk flag: Tencent.
Tencent Technology and its concert party Suzhou Paiyi collectively hold 20.26% of Enflame, making them the single largest shareholder following six consecutive investment rounds beginning with the Pre-A in 2018. The commercial relationship is even more tightly bound than the equity stake suggests. Tencent's share of Enflame's total revenue rose from 33.34% in 2023 to 37.77% in 2024 and then surged to 83.79% in 2025 — meaning more than four-fifths of last year's revenue originated from a single customer. The jointly developed "Zixiao" inference chip has been deployed across Tencent's OCR recognition, intelligent conferencing, and audio-visual noise reduction applications.
The concentration dynamic drew regulatory scrutiny during the STAR Market review process and remains a focal point for institutional investors assessing the IPO. Revenue diversification beyond Tencent is the single most consequential variable in Enflame's medium-term investment case.
RMB 6 Billion Capital Allocation Bets on Next-Generation Architecture
The IPO proceeds are earmarked with specificity: RMB 1.503 billion (US$208.8 million) for fifth-generation AI chip R&D and commercialization; RMB 1.197 billion (US$166.3 million) for sixth-generation chip development; and RMB 3.3 billion (US$458.3 million) for advanced AI software-hardware co-innovation infrastructure. The first two line items combined represent approximately 70% of Enflame's total R&D expenditure across the 2023–2025 period.
The addressable market backdrop is supportive in scale if not in competitive structure. Frost & Sullivan projects the global AI accelerator card market will expand from over US$100 billion in 2024 to over US$500 billion by 2028. Nvidia's dominance, however, remains structurally entrenched — a ceiling that domestic substitution narratives have consistently underestimated in translating to sustained market share gains.
Enflame's IPO pricing, post-subscription results, and early secondary market behavior will be closely watched as a real-time referendum on whether China's AI chip investment thesis can survive the transition from policy-driven scarcity premium to earnings-driven fundamental valuation.
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